Forty-one players are invited to the camp run by Olympic coach Mark Johnson and 23 will make the team that begins a 10-game domestic tour in September. The 21 Olympians for the 2010 Vancouver Games will be chosen from that team.

Coyne would become the youngest women's Olympic hockey player if she makes it. "It's going to be really tough, but I want to think positive," Coyne says. "Even though I'm the youngest player, that shouldn't matter."

The forward from the Chicago suburb of Palos Heights, Ill., scored the winning goal in overtime of the under-18 world championships in Fussen, Germany in January, the USA's second consecutive title. She and teammate Brianna Decker were the leading goal scorers in the tournament, with eight goals each in five games.

Whether Coyne makes the 2010 Olympics or not, she is expected to a be fixture on women's national and Olympic squads for some time.

"She's part of our future and has been part of our present moment, too," says Johnson, who also coached the U-18 team at the worlds.

Coyne won't be intimidated playing against older competition; she's been doing it since trading in those figure skates. She joined the U-18 national team at age 15 and just completed her second season with a U-19 amateur team, the Chicago Mission of the Triple-A Midwest Elite league. And she has skated in workouts with several pros, including NHL players Rene Bourque of the Calgary Flames and Tim Stapleton of the Atlanta Thrashers.

"Last year was the first year she played solely with girls and not dual rosters (one boys team, one girls)," her mother said.

At 5-foot-1, 125 pounds, Coyne stopped playing in games on men's teams because of the growing size disparity. But she still loves time on the ice with the guys and can match their skating skills.

"She's unbelievably fast … She practices with our midget major team, our oldest boys' team. A lot of those guys are moving on to college and junior hockey," says Greg Tam, coach of Coyne's Chicago Mission team last year. "If you were to walk into a rink and not know she was a girl, if you didn't see that pony tail flying out from the back of her helmet, you'd think she was one of the best skaters on the ice. And she is. …

"She's so well-rounded as a player. Obviously what stands out is her offensive ability, but she does get overlooked a bit with her defense," he says. "She's already a step ahead of everybody because she reads the game so well … and then she turns on the jets."

The hockey instincts come from years on the ice — she was drawn to the game following her older brother Kevin, now at Division III Becker College in Worcester, Mass. — and studying it non-stop.

"Her life is hockey. If she's not at the rink, she's at home doing homework and watching hockey," Tam says.

A senior-to-be at Carl Sandburg High School in suburban Chicago, Coyne plans to play college hockey but says she won't concentrate on choice of school until after this week's trials. She hasn't decided her field of study, either, but has a career goal.

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